Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(64)

In Jorge’s room, I turned on every light, then went through the motions of checking each nook and cranny. I even shook out his covers to prove no monsters were hiding in his bed. When he remained unconvinced, I went with plan B, moving a mat into the hall and preparing an emergency nest. We lay down, side by side, and I pointed at the silver half globes dotting the ceiling, explaining how their reflective surfaces would allow him to see any bad men coming. “They’re like a personal protection system,” I told him. “They’ll keep you safe.”

Jorge’s shoulders finally relaxed. He snuggled closer to me and I picked up a Dora book. By the halfway mark, his eyes were drooping. The hallway had quieted, the milieu restored.

Just the detectives remained, conspicuous in their dark suits. Greg paused in front of them. They were speaking too low for me to hear. Greg frowned, shook his head, then frowned again. Finally, he pointed toward me and the blonde turned expectantly.

In full view of her gaze, I finished the first book. Then I set it down, picked up a second, and opened the cover.

Whatever she had to say could wait, mostly because I didn’t want to hear it.

“Danny girl,” my father sang inside my head.

I know, I know, I know.



“We have a warrant for all records pertaining to Oswald James Harrington,” Sergeant D.D. Warren explained ten minutes later, stony-faced. “We also have a warrant for all information pertaining to Tika Rain Solis. Detective Phil LeBlanc will oversee the transfer of all information. The rest of us have questions for the staff.”

I stared at Sergeant Warren blankly. She was still holding out several official-looking documents. For lack of anything better to do, I took them from her. They definitely read like warrants.

“I’ll … I’ll have to call Karen Rober, the nurse manager,” I said at last.

“You do that.”

“Are you sure this isn’t something that can wait till morning? We run a lean crew at night, and can’t spare any staff.”

“I’m sure.” She didn’t blink and it occurred to me that the sergeant had planned this one-thirty ambush. Nine-to-five hours would’ve meant dealing with management, not to mention the hospital’s cadre of lawyers. Middle-of-the-night raids, on the other hand …

“You’re going to have to be patient,” I said, feeling frazzled. I’d never been served with a warrant before. How much did one give a detective? The warrant said everything, but what did that mean? The staff wasn’t equipped for this. I wasn’t equipped for this.

I needed to visit Lucy. She’d made it through Jorge’s meltdown. I wondered if that meant she was now curled up and sleeping in a moonbeam.

“We’ll move into the conference room,” Sergeant Warren declared briskly.

“Conference room?”

“You know, the room we used last time.”

“You mean the classroom?”

“Whatever. Don’t worry. We know our way there.” She started striding down the hall, two of the detectives peeling off to follow her. The fourth cop remained standing in front of me. Mid-forties, a little doughy around the middle, he wore a sheepish smile. Good cop, I decided. Anyone who worked with Sergeant Warren would have to be.

“Detective Phil LeBlanc,” he introduced himself. “If you show me where you keep your records, I can take it from there.”

Not that big a dope, I unlocked the door leading to the Admin area and dug through the filing cabinet for the two patients in question: Oswald James Harrington and Tika Rain Solis. I pulled the files, showed Detective LeBlanc the photocopier, then called Karen.

She was half-asleep, but woke up fast enough once she heard the news. “I’ll be right there,” she assured me, which, given where she lived, meant at least an hour.

“Do we need a lawyer? How does this work?”

“Don’t answer any questions you don’t want to answer, and advise the rest of the staff to do the same. Showing up at one-thirty in the morning. Assholes.”

“I think Sergeant Warren considers that a compliment,” I said. As if summoning the Devil, Warren appeared at the end of the hall.

“We’d like to start with you,” she said: a command, not a request.

“No shit,” I muttered.

I hung up the phone. As the most senior person on the floor, I would have to shoulder this load and play nice with the detectives. Lucky me.

“Fine,” I said.

“Good,” Warren returned.

“Just gotta grab a glass of water.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Make yourself comfortable.”

I turned away from the detective and headed for the kitchenette. At the last minute, however, I continued down the hallway to Lucy’s room. I peered in, expecting to see Lucy sleeping in a corner.

Instead, she was dancing.

She moved around the room in graceful circles, swooshing from one moonbeam to the next. The oversized surgical scrub shirt ballooned around her as she twirled, leaping across her mattress, then pirouetting in front of the windows.

She was a cat again, moving in the languid style of a feline. Maybe she was trying to catch moonbeams in her paws. Maybe she simply liked the way it felt to sway to and fro. She hit the windows, placed her hands open-palmed against the glass. Then she stilled, and I knew she saw my reflection.